topic Re: Final value fees and postage in Selling

Final value fees and postage

sweetsherry1 — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:35:19 GMT

I am absolutely appalled that my final value fee was charged on the total price including postage. Postage is not money in my pocket. It was $70 paid by the buyer to get the article to themselves. How can they do that and get away with it. That must be illegal. I will NOT be selling any large cost items on ebay again. That is highway robbery. sweetsherry1

Re: Final value fees and postage

padi*0409 — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:38:50 GMT

Have a read of the post below, magically it's almost the same situation you appear to be in.

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling-on-eBay/Ebay-deducted-9-68-for-a-20-item/qaq-p/2437764/comment-id/38264#M38264

Re: Final value fees and postage

gutterpunkz05 — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 11:27:56 GMT

Totally legal and all approved by ACCC, this has been the case for years, so it is good to see you keep up to date.

Re: Final value fees and postage

sugar249 — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 11:40:06 GMT

You have obviously read the T&C's, this has being the policy for at least 10 years.

Myrtle must have being heavy

Re: Final value fees and postage

jellybirddesigns — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 12:00:46 GMT

Combined fees have been the norm for many years.

Ebay is hardly new in this regard - all the major platforms charge a fee on postage.

Smart sellers know how to price their items to account for all fees and charges.

If you don't want to pay fees, try Facebook marketplace, but you'll have a much smaller pool of buyer plus time wasters and random strangers coming to your house.

Re: Final value fees and postage

countessalmirena — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 15:53:53 GMT

@sweetsherryl,

Unfortunately, as the other responders have said, this has been the case for years now.

Don't think for a moment that anyone here is delighted by it, or thinks that it is fair - but eBay have been challenged on this before and have been able to demonstrate that it's in order. I believe that at the time eBay were offering savings to sellers, which resulted in sellers not losing money.

You could bring a new complaint to the ACCC about this practice, on the basis of the situation having changed since eBay first implemented this. I don't know whether the ACCC would revisit this.

The long-time members of these boards tend to be pragmatic about eBay's rules and policies. Rather than lamenting the fees on postage, they would have been briefly outraged at the time when it was first implemented, and then worked out how to minimise the effect of the fee change. They might occasionally mutter about the fees, but for those who sell professionally on eBay, it just doesn't do to get upset over one aspect of the costs. Successful selling in a business will look at outgoing costs overall, and will price their items to maximise their profits; if they are making a good profit, then factoring in those FVFs including on the postage component will probably not even be noticed after a while.

For the occasional seller/mostly buyer (as I gather you are now, as you've only sold a few items recently), I suppose you'd have had no reason to realise that the FVF would be upon the total including postage.

Yes, it's unfair, but it's eBay policy. You could have listed the item as pickup only but buyers welcome to organise their own freight, and in that case, the buyer would have been responsible for paying the freight company directly, rather than your paying the freight company on behalf of the buyer. That would have meant no FVF upon the postage cost. However, listing in that way may very well have meant no interest from potential buyers in other states or at a distance from you.

For any future selling, it is always worth your reading through the Help pages, or looking at the seller resources, or even posting on these boards (in the Seller board, for instance) and asking if anything has changed since you last sold. People here have a wealth of experience, and when they can give advice, they will do so.

Re: Final value fees and postage

sugar249 — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 19:47:18 GMT

@countessalmirena wrote:
@sweetsherryl,

Don't think for a moment that anyone here is delighted by it, or thinks that it is fair - but eBay have been challenged on this before and have been able to demonstrate that it's in order. I believe that at the time eBay were offering savings to sellers, which resulted in sellers not losing money.

I always struggle when a radio station makes a statement, that everyone loves this artist, or a politician makes a statement saying everyone is for it, or anyone else saying everyone.

People shouldnt assume because of there own opinion, or a handful of complainers on a forum or Facebook, that everyone doesnt agree. Because I fully support the approach Ebay takes with final value fee's. Most of us know why they were forced to do it. And if they didnt, they would have had to increase other fee's anyhow, they are not a charitable organisation.

So please don't lump me in to your view that no one likes it. I for one do, and before I get accused of it, I do not work for Ebay, and I would save a truck load of money each year if they didnt, but they do, and I support them for it.

Re: Final value fees and postage

glenbankloel — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 21:29:09 GMT

You are just adding to a loooooong line of disgruntled sellers.

However, as other posters have advised you are very late to the "party", this has been the situation for several years.

Best to move on and adjust and re-think your charges/pricing if you are not happy and losing money.

You must keep up to date with new eBay policies as they arise, and make whatever adjustments and decisions necessary.

Re: Final value fees and postage

sandypebbles — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 22:50:32 GMT

Yes, as soon as I saw the heading ......

Re: Final value fees and postage

countessalmirena — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 23:42:13 GMT

I’m aware (I think) of why some people think eBay decided to charge FVFs on postage; it’s the perception that “some sellers were trying to avoid fees by inflating the postage cost and listing the item itself at a very low price”. eBay make decisions based upon their bottom line, not upon fairness. Some sellers are particularly disadvantaged by this policy – for instance, those selling reasonably items whose overseas postage costs would be disproportionately affected in comparison with their local postage costs. Sellers have in the main had to think strategically about how to offset this or how to list or what sort of items to list.

I can use “the majority of sellers” instead of “anyone”, and would usually have done so.

Re: Final value fees and postage

p9games — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 23:46:58 GMT

It's not illegal and it isn't highway robbery.

If they didn't do it people would sell items for $1 + $500 postage wouldn't they?

Deal with the fees or sell on another platform. Entirely up to you

Re: Final value fees and postage

*sons_and_daughters* — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 07:07:57 GMT

@p9games wrote:
It's not illegal and it isn't highway robbery.

If they didn't do it people would sell items for $1 + $500 postage wouldn't they?

Deal with the fees or sell on another platform. Entirely up to you

And they were. I bought an item a few years back now, at auction, for 1c with $45 postage. I was the only bidder, and I knew getting it at that price was a bargain. The same seller had the same item, again at auction, with a start bid of 1c with free postage. That item sold for over $100. Win for me, but they escaped a lot of fees for the item I won.

I got quite a few bargains like that, because I looked at the total price, not just what the item sold for. A few were after the fee on postage came in, so while I got a few more bargains, the seller was probably shocked why they were paying fees on those items, when ordinarily they'd pay nothing.

While I'm not a fan, I don't have an issue with fees on postage. It's kept those trying to rort the system a bit more honest. I look at the overall price, not just item price and postage cost.

Re: Final value fees and postage

sugar249 — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 07:15:40 GMT

@countessalmirena wrote:
for instance, those selling reasonably items whose overseas postage costs would be disproportionately affected in comparison with their local postage costs. Sellers have in the main had to think strategically about how to offset this or how to list or what sort of items to list.

Nothing strategic required, It's quite simple and what any professional business would do, calculate all costs of a sale, such as purchase of item, how much profit you want to make, postage price, all fee's, etc, etc, then price your item accordingly. Not strategy just logic. We have people coming on here who just list an item, and don't consider the costs, they forget Ebay is not a charitable organisation. If they want free, go to Facebook or Gumtree, and look at the issues people have there.

Re: Final value fees and postage

digital*ghost — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 22:45:42 GMT

@sugar249 wrote:

Nothing strategic required,

There definitely can be, since there are a lot of different pricing and postage models aside from the straightforward one you've outlined. Pricing itself - with or without fees being applied to prices - can be considered strategic, and designed to appeal to a specific market. Double one of the costs involved overnight (as many sellers experienced when fees were applied to postage), and yeah, sellers all over the site had to rethink their pricing strategy.

Re: Final value fees and postage

gec2002 — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 22:48:12 GMT

In an earlier answer to the countess you stated

"I always struggle when a radio station makes a statement, that everyone loves this artist, or a politician makes a statement saying everyone is for it, or anyone else saying everyone.

People shouldnt assume because of there own opinion, or a handful of complainers on a forum or Facebook, that everyone doesnt agree."

Then you state "Nothing strategic required" a blanket staement that pricing is just logic, no if or buts Just Logic. Pricing has both elements of logic and strategy, have you never heard of "Lost Leaders", and how do you set your pricing compared to your competitors, higher/lower/the same, are you going to give Free Post or charge Postage, if you charge Postage will just cover costs or show a discount and make up the difference in price, what profit margin are you going to set, what is my discount pricing, what is my promotional pricing, all these elements are strategic.

Re: Final value fees and postage

gec2002 — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 22:50:56 GMT

Really must learn to type faster and how to use more than one finger

Re: Final value fees and postage

natozi — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 00:04:59 GMT

I hadn't sold anything on Ebay for a few years so maybe I have a bad memory or that the things I had sold in the past weren't very high in price. I sold something for $927 including postage and ended up with a payout of $803. Far out $124 selling fee (12%) seems steep to me. I get that the platform makes things easy and has a lot of buyers to drive the price up but still that seems a lot. Anyway lucky I don't sell much as Ebay seems much better for buying than selling.

Re: Final value fees and postage

jellybirddesigns — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 00:30:08 GMT

I'm constantly surprised by the number of people who think that selling on Ebay is virtually "free".

The fees are upfront and displayed for anyone who cares to look and have been around 13.4% combined for Ebay/Paypal/Adyen for many, many years (depending on what category you sell in).

PS: 12% of $927 is $111.24, which would have given you $815.76. If you got $803, then your percentage was approx 13.4%, which is as stated above.

It would not have seemed a lot of you had worked out what your nett would have been after fees ahead of time and then made listing decisions based on an informed opinion.

Re: Final value fees and postage

phchbr — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 10:03:32 GMT

There is a valid question here. Ebay can charge what they want, and people can choose to use it or do something else. I'd prefer to use it than risk the Wild West of GumTree, and I'm ok paying a fee for the protection offered by ebay. Their reason for including postage in the fee calculation, ie that people are selling for $1 and charging $99 postage, when in fact the goods are worth $90 and postage costs $10, seems a bit lame in this age of AI and machine learning, but again, I can either put up with it or go somewhere else.

The problem though is that the seller's fee varies depending on where the goods are being shipped to, and by what method. I just sold something as a private seller, not a store seller, on ebay Australia for A$137.50 to someone in Canada. The buyer requested Express postage. I got a quote for A$36, plus an Australia Post packing box and insurance, total A$42. I discovered after everything had been agreed by the buyer, this bumped up ebay's fee to me, the seller, from 17% to 19% of the sale price. Had the buyer been in Australia and happy with a standard shipping service, my total fee would have been 16%. If he'd requested a courier to Canada, my fee would have been 25%! And none of this benefits me in the least. You might say ebay gave me access to an overseas buyer, but they also charged me 1% for that. Ok, so I've learned a valuable lesson.

I assumed that if I looked through goods for sale by private sellers that I would see people protecting themselves from these fee variations. I expected to see comments like "Ebay fees are calculated on the sale price plus the postage. If posting by Express or any service other than Standard, or if posting outside of Australia, the buyer will bear the additional ebay fees incurred". I can't see anything like that. Does anyone know if people protect themselves in this way?

Re: Final value fees and postage

davewil1964 — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 10:23:54 GMT

There isn't a valid question.

You've posted the same novel in two threads.

It is a novel, because you don't have a grasp of facts. None of the numbers you have quoted align with reality. Find a calculator. Your phone has one, or your computer.